A Semantic And Pragmatic Study On The Attribute-Head Phrase Structure "V Of N"

"V of N" is a controversial phrase structure for the contradiction between the nature and function of the center word V and that of the entire phrase. Researchers have been focusing on the syntactic aspect of the phrase structure for a long time yet without a unanimous conclusion. There is much work to be done on a systematic and in-depth examination over its semantic and pragmatic properties. With the support of the relevant research findings and the Three Plane Theory of Chinese grammar, this thesis attempts to verify the grammatical property of the phrase structure "V of N" as one of being attribute-headed with V as its center word. Our work goes further with a detailed analysis of its properties and functions from the semantic and pragmatic perspective, with special attention paid to the interaction between the three grammatical planes, that is, the syntactic plane, the semantic plane and the pragmatic plane.The thesis is composed of six chapters.The first chapter outlines the research scope of the attribute-head phrase structure "V of N" as well as its research significance. It also gives an account of the corpus building for the present study.The second chapter is a qualitative definition of "V of N" as an attribute-head phrase structure. It reviews a number of mainstream theories about the phrase structure, with a refutation of other arguments except the one that defines the structure as a nominal subordinate phrase.In the third chapter, there is a brief introduction and evaluation of the relevant semantic and pragmatic studies on "V of N".The fourth chapter gives a semantic analysis on "V of N" as a phrase structure, including the semantic property and functions of the attribute N, the center word V and the phrase "V of N", as well as the relevant semantic ambiguity the phrase structure can bring about with it. The focus of this part is on the thirteen semantic relationships between N and V. It also explores the semantic types of N and the possible semantic relationship between each type and V, and analyses the reason why only when N is the subordinate nominal phrase can the phrase "V of N" be semantic-independent. In addition, semantic property of V, the relationship between its semantic and dictionary meaning as well as its valence problem are discussed respectively. This part is also concerned with the semantic function of "V of N" as a whole and further elaborates how and why the phrase structure can lead to some semantic ambiguity, and how to disambiguate it.The fifth chapter talks about the pragmatic functions of "V of N". It suggests and analyzes its six functions in detail:(1) presupposition function; (2) focus function; (3) offering topic for a sentence; (4) expressive function in the discourse; (5) coherence function in the text; (6) rhetoric function in literary works. In the analysis, due attention has been paid to the relationship between such pragmatic functions and syntactic and semantic properties as well as their interaction.The sixth chapter functions as a conclusion of the whole paper. It summarizes the key points and restates the main arguments and conclusion of the present study.